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In Reply to: ... with all the sophistication of Vicomte de Valvert from the well known Rostrand play. posted by Audiophilander on November 6, 2001 at 02:03:24:
There are some films in this group that I like: "RSRD" "Sand Pebbles" (sorta), but nothing that grabs me and says "Oh, wow!" (to use a very 60s expression). Like "big ears" below, I see "Kane" as a Welles product, even if others had their names attached.A lot of this stuff strikes me as pretty workmanlike from a directorial standpoint: WSS, TSM, for example. Star Trek the Motionless Picture (great phrase, AuPh!) was the worst of the series -- a TV episode script stretched to feature film length and inflated with the worst of "Trekkie" High Seriousness. The other ones did not take themselves so seriously -- just good clean fun.
WSS is one of my least favorite movies ever. Until I saw several amateur stage productions of WSS, I had no idea that Bernstein/Sondheim's musical version of Romeo & Juliet -- with one or two small lapses -- was every bit as powerful dramatically as the Shakespeare original it was based on. The music, of course, is fabulous. But this film version is nothing but a bunch of fey dancers (who look about as menacing as kittens with tummies full of warm milk) and some pretty carboard actors whose singing is overdubbed with that real singers. Not a triumph for anyone, IMHO. In fact, although the chronology doesn't fit the argument (WSS was first), one could say that the main vice of the movie WSS is that is an attempt to "saccharinize" Bernstein/Sondheim's musical to the sweetness level of TSOM.
Much more than R&J, WSS is Maria/Juliet's story. Maria is the one who undergoes the psychological transformation -- from a young innocent into an adult desperately -- and unsuccessfully -- trying to avoid the consequences of the violent society in which she lives. In the climactic final scene, it is Maria who throws down the gun and refuses to perpetuate the cycle of revenge that has killed Tony. I suggest that if you stripped away the music and the dancing from WSS, you would still have one hell of a play. That is more than one could say for most musicals, which, at best, have plot lines about a 1/2 step more sophisticated than those of operas.
Mr. Wise's WSS buries all of this grown-up stuff under a 25 lb. bag of sugar, with a Natalie Wood poster stuck on the front.
Arrgh!!!!!!!
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Follow Ups
- Re: Dunno about that, 'Phlounder - Bruce from DC 07:08:25 11/06/01 (4)
- I stand by what I said about Star Trek - The 'Motionless' Picture in it's original form, ... - Audiophilander 09:15:07 11/06/01 (3)
- DVD? I don't have no stinkin' DVD. - Bruce from DC 13:19:32 11/06/01 (2)
- Letterboxing alone is worth the purchase - padreken 15:12:55 11/06/01 (0)
- Wha-? TAPE & NO DVD! [8^o] Why, you, you... infidel, you! Ye has risen from the dark abyss Outside! - Audiophilander 14:08:00 11/06/01 (0)
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